BACKWARD GLANCES - Letter lost 58 years turns up in Twin Cities

Wednesday

Apr 18, 2012 at 12:01 AMApr 18, 2012 at 5:23 PM

See what was happening in Redwood Falls 50 , 25, and 10 years ago this week.

Joshua Dixon, Staff Writer

1962—50 years ago
• As part of raising city employees’ pay an average of five to eight percent, Police Chief Rupert Barnes’ salary was raised from $365 to $400 a month. Overtime pay for patrolmen officers was set at $1.50 per hour.
• John Storts, “about 80”, owner of an ice business in Redwood Falls from approximately 1917-1942, died of a stroke in Madison, Wisconsin.
• Randy Olson, four, of Morton, suffered a two-fer accident. First he got his hand caught in a washing machine wringer. Then when the wringer was released to free his hand, it hit him above the eye, requiring one stitch.
• A new self-improvement program for teaching math, developed by Redwood Falls High School teachers, was recommended for a national honor by the National Educational Association’s annual meeting at Sioux Falls.
• The outer shell of the new Sunwood Nursing Home was nearly complete, with interior construction continuing for a planned June 1 opening date.
1987—25 years ago
• When a new, 600-foot tall TV tower that re-broadcast KSTP Channel 5 from the Twin Cities started operation near Vesta, area residents immediately began complaining about how it messed up the reception on all their other TV channels.
• Sunday, April 19, 1987 set a new temperature record at 90 degrees. The previous high of 86 degrees was set in 1936.
• The April 21, 1987 Gazette featured an ad for the RCA SmallWonder camcorder, which recorded up to an hour of video on a VHS cassette for a cost of only $1,249.
• The Redwood Falls hospital sponsored a recognition day / open house tea for its nurses.
• The Redwood?County Historical Society expressed its concern with corn being planted on the 17 acre lot in front of the county museum, fearing if the corn got too high no one on the highway would be able to see the museum.
2002—10 years ago
• Florence Bernardy was working at a cafe in Redwood in 1938 when she met her future husband, Joe Szczesniak, in town to manage the bowling alley.
In 2002, Florance was notified that a long-lost, never-opened letter Joe — now departed — wrote her in France in 1944, when he was in the army in World War II, had been found in a dresser drawer in a Twin Cities Goodwill store.
• Gladys Johnson, 89, put-putted around the Johnson Park Place grounds in an 1890s-style horseless carriage her son built out of plywood, bicycle wheels, and an eight-horsepower lawnmower engine.
• Joshua Jans, a professional storm chaser (there are such things?) from Mankato, passed through Redwood Falls looking for the first really promising thunderstorm of the season.
• Friends of Redwood, a subset of the?Redwood?Falls Women of Today, started a new program to give new families arriving in town gift bags filled with presents from over 40 local businesses.
• To give emergency crews from across Minnesota a better idea of what other specialists do at an emergency site, North Ambulance sponsored a seminar at the Redwood Falls airport, taking everyone through all the steps of a typical car crash rescue.